I'd like to ask you to take your Bibles this morning, go to Romans chapter eight, Romans chapter eight this morning. I bring you greetings from the Hofstetlers in Uganda. Some of you know, if you were in service last Sunday night, you know that I went to Uganda this week. So I got back yesterday and spent the middle of, you know, Tuesday through Friday with Hufstedlers and visiting the work there at Sufficiency of Scripture Ministries, really encouraging, exciting things going on. So greetings from the Hufstedlers. Also Shannon Hurley, who preached here last fall and we helped with our Christmas offering with the work that's going on there, sends his thanks and greetings to us, as well as the Ugandans. When I was finishing up a class, they said to make sure I told you Greetings. So I've told you now that I fulfilled my obligation. So thankful Lord for that. Really encouraging time to see what God's doing. It's a significant and fascinating ministry. That's my first time in Uganda, other than sitting on a plane in Entebbe waiting to fly down to Tanzania. So I'd never been into that country. And really it's out in a rural area, but it's almost as if God just sort of raised up a city with the Christian school and the school for training men for ministry and church, just exciting work of God there. And so keep praying for them as they are expanding and working through it. One of the things that was interesting in that particular area, if you may recall, Shannon was here. He preached that when they moved into that area, because basically the ministry is planted in the middle of a number of villages, small village area, rural area. that it was just devastated really by sin. There was functionally no marriage, so essentially no family, and loads of abandoned and orphaned children. And that's where they started some of the school ministry, thinking if they can help train these children to know the Lord. But in the Hurley's home, I had dinner with them on Wednesday, I think it was. Basically, they're almost like dorm parents with children that they've ended up taking into their home, one set of three. The mom basically just met a man from the Middle East and just left the country with them and left her three children for just anybody to pick up. I mean, no plan, no family, just essentially deserted them to pursue, in her mind, apparently, the benefits of leaving that area. Well, one of those three children was at the meal we were at, and Shannon introduced me to her, and she has a family in the Hurleys that love her, caring for her, giving her the gospel. So she went from a position of being destitute to God placing her in the home of a family where she can call someone father. And she has hope for the future. And what was sort of fascinating as I sat there and observed this in a number, I met with all the kids that night and we're talking to them. how much in God's providence it actually parallels the very passage we're gonna look at here in the book of Romans. Because Paul has said to the Romans and to us that we're not under any obligation to the flesh to live according to the flesh. We've actually been set free from that debt so that the implication is we can actually live according to the spirit, we can put to death the deeds of the body. And he grounds that in our relationship to God as our father. and to the promises that we have because of that, the future that God has made possible for us. And that's the motivation and the reason why we should live like we are called to live. I wanna read, begin with the two verses we've already looked at in this section, but start in Romans chapter eight. I'm gonna read verses 12 to 17. So then, verse 12, so then brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you received a spirit of adoption as sons by which or by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him. So if you've been here through the series, you know that Paul is talking about the fact that the gospel frees us from slavery to sin so that we no longer have a debt or obligation to the flesh. We must no longer live according to the flesh, but we can live according to the spirit. And if that's true, then we will actually be putting to death the deeds of the body. It's a definitive and ultimate kind of distinction. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. If you live according to the Spirit, that is, putting to death the diseased body, you will live. I mean, there's no middle ground. And Paul's been very clear. You are either in the flesh or you're in the Spirit. You don't flow back and forth between them. And so since these believers are described in verses nine and 10 as being in the Spirit, their life is to be distinctively different from those who are in the flesh. and that calls us to mortify or put to death the deeds of the body. So how can we do that? And when I say how can we do that, I'm not meaning what's the little strategy or tactic, but how are we able to do that? How is it possible for us to have the strength that is necessary to put to death the deeds of the body? That's what he's telling us in verses 14 through 17. He anchors it in two important realities we'll just unpack as we go through. First has to do with our relationship with the Father. And the second is tied to the riches that we have in Christ. that we have a present relationship with God. Look at verses 14 through 16 again, because here he states it right off in verse 14, for all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. And I'm gonna, for our purposes, I'm gonna show us four really important ramifications of this present relationship, the first in verse 14, is that it transforms us. I alluded to this a couple of weeks ago when we were looking at 12 and 13, but in 14 when it says, being led by the Spirit of God, that is not, we shouldn't be thinking of that as like daily guidance. Right, so how do we go about our day? What should I do this morning? And the spirit sort of leads me to set my schedule and I need to make this decision or that decision and it's almost like some kind of sanctified Google Maps system where the spirit maps it out for me and I follow that. That's not what it's talking about. It's actually talking about the basic, if I could put it this way, the direction of our lives. is led by the Spirit versus being according to the flesh. So practically speaking, as you work your way through this passage, when he says, for instance, in verse six, I'm sorry, verse five, those who are according to the Spirit, or in verse nine, those who are in the Spirit, that's the same thing as describing parallel being led by the Spirit. It's a description of them. that there's a kind of person that doesn't walk according to the flesh, but walks according to the spirit. There's a kind of person that is not in the flesh, but is in the spirit. And there's a kind of person that is led by the spirit. And that's opposed to living according to the flesh. It's talking about really a description of what God has done for us to give us the work of the Spirit to transform us, to make us like Christ, what chapter 8 verse 29 will say is His ultimate plan to us. When you pair this, if you could, because it's used by Paul in Romans 8, which we're looking at, but it's also used in Galatians 5, and when it's set in Galatians 5, it's talking about the work of the Spirit to fight against the works of the flesh and produce in us the fruit of the Spirit. So again, led by the Spirit in Galatians 5 isn't, how do I choose what job to have, what house, what car? I've got this internal guidance system. It actually is the fight between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit is producing the fruit of the Spirit. He's fighting against the works of the flesh. It's about the moral transformation of our lives that God is doing this because, look at verse 14, because it's a close connection. All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. All right, so make sure you're clear about this. He doesn't say, be led by the Spirit so you can be the son of God. Right, it's not an arrow. I was trying to think of how to picture it, right? So think about it this way. Here he says, being led by the Spirit doesn't go then an arrow to makes you the son of God. It's actually an equal sign that's in there. As many as are led by the Spirit, these are the sons of God. So to be a child of God is to be led by the Spirit. To be led by the Spirit is to be a child of God. It's a marker of identity, a characteristic of a person. Because remember he said in chapter 8 verses 9 and 10, if you don't have the Spirit, you don't belong to Christ. So the Holy Spirit's presence and work in our lives is not some kind of an add-on to Christian existence. It's at the very center of it. The category of people, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, matches this category. These are the sons of God. Two statements, between them an equal sign. Led by the Spirit of God means Son of God. Son of God means to be led by the Spirit of God. It transforms the life so that the operative power of your life is no longer the flesh but the Spirit. Because you're not in the flesh, you're in the Spirit. And so we can put to death the deeds of the body because the Spirit of God is the one who is directing our lives if we're in Christ, if we are born again, if the Spirit is in us. Notice the beginning of verse 15, here's a second ramification of this. I just put it this way, it frees us. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out, Abba, Father. So the first part of this verse focuses on the freedom that has come to us by virtue of the Spirit's ministry. There is, this is one of those cases where we actually, I mentioned it in two weeks ago, right? One of the problems in translation is going from Greek to English is knowing whether you should have a small case or a large case S on the word spirit. So probably in this room this morning, you have people who have in verse 15, like I have, a translation that has the word Spirit both times with a small s. How many of you have that? Okay, all the NASB people here have that. But you also have some translations that have both as capital. I'm gonna be able to find out who's got NIVs here, all right? So both of them is capital S. So we don't have a capital S spirit of slavery, but we have a capital S spirit of adoption, right? So those are there. And then some of you have translations. Here come all the ESV and King James people that go small s, capital S. How many of you have that? All right, so here's the, this is the issue that comes in, which is it? Is it our spirit, that'd be the small S, or is it the Holy Spirit, that's the capital S, right? And so that's the interpretive issue that's at stake in it. I tilt toward the small in both. And not just because I have a numeric standard. Actually, as I was wrestling through it, it seems to me the argument against both being small s is a little bit of a, I think a misstatement. I'll say, well, it's a Holy Spirit through almost all of this. And I say, yeah, well, that's true. But look at verse 16. The Spirit, capital S, himself testifies with our Spirit, small s, and nobody, I don't think anybody in here has a translation that says testifies with our Spirit, capital S. Because we know that that's the first Spirit in verse 16 is the Holy Spirit, the second Spirit in verse 16 is our Spirit. So like the verse right after verse 15 uses Spirit with a small s about our human spirit. So I don't think it's quite as clear just by the abundances of the uses being capital S. The key though is this, and this is one of those scenarios where maybe what we need to do is not get too hyper on the distinction, but think about the way in which Paul would be making the argument. Because no matter how you take the first spirit in verse 15, we know that he's saying there's something that we don't have, and that is a spirit of slavery that leads to fear. Right, so his argument is we can live a certain way because we don't have a spirit that produces bondage, which leads to fear. Rather, we have a spirit of adoption, which leads to a special relationship with God. So the basic point is that you and I have been freed from slavery probably a combo of sin and death, right? Slaves to sin makes us subject to death, which leads to fear. And we need to think in terms of that kind of a biblical framework, right? What presses people to live for the gratification of the flesh? It's because they think they have nothing better available to them. They think that this life is all there is, and they need to make the most of it to their satisfaction that they possibly can. Don't overhear my critique, but even the very concept of, I've got to get these things done before I die, because why? Like after I'm dead, I can't enjoy anything. Right, it's gotta be on my bucket list because if I don't get to it by the time I die, I missed out. Right, that ultimate framework is that this life and this world is all we have to enjoy, so get as much as you can. Right, go for it to the fullest. Seize the day, make sure you drain the last drop out of every experience in this world because there's nothing after it. When you die, it's gone. Right, that's the slavery that ultimately leads us to fear then the end of the line. I've got so much more I want to do. There's so, so much. And if you're enslaved to sin, then the closer that deadline gets, the more the awareness of your judgment is. So you're not looking out at death with any hopeful anticipation. You're looking out at death with a fear of what comes after. And that then just doubles down into your life. So you're caught in the rat race of immediate gratification, which tries to drown out the awareness that judgment is coming. Right, and Paul says, that's not what we've received. We've received something radically different than that that frees us from that. We've received the spirit of adoption. We have actually been brought into the family of God as sons. It's freed us from this kind of self-centered, hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, to have a blast while we last, because it's coming to an end quickly. That's not the spirit that we've received. We've received a different spirit. And look what it does at the end of verse 15. It actually draws us. The spirit S debate ties into this. If you look at the end of the verse, for instance, it says, a spirit, if it's small spirit, Like the NASB has a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out Abba Father. So that's our spirit, it's by our spirit we cry out Abba Father. And I'm just doing this as like a teaching thing, right? If it is a capital S, then it should not be by which, it should be by whom. Because the Holy Spirit is not a thing, he's a person. Our spirit is just the immaterial part of us, and so for it to say by which we cry out, that is we cry out in our spirit, that's okay. But if you take it as the Holy Spirit, then it really needs to be by whom we cry out. That is, we can cry out by virtue of His presence in us. It's not by which, as if the Spirit is impersonal in that sense, or just a part of God. He's the true and living God. But I take it as small s, and by which we cry out, Abba, Father. And here's where I'd say is, this is where I think it's over-distinction a little bit, because the bottom line is, my spirit would never cry out, Abba, Father, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. That's why in Galatians 4 and verse 6, it's actually God pours his spirit into us so the cry of a father comes. Right? What is at stake here, though, is that when God brings us to himself as his children, right? We're separated from God. We are under a debt of sin in a life hostile against God. And God, by his grace, draws us to himself, enlivening our spirit, making us alive. by the gift of the Spirit, that that is absolutely intricately connected to this cry that comes from our heart, Abba, Father. We've been brought into a relationship with God, a very close relational fellowship. And that's what the words here at the end of the verse, Abba, Father, signify to us. The word Abba is an Aramaic word. If you're familiar with the New Testament times, the Jewish people in that area spoke Aramaic. but also because of the spread of the Grecian influence in the Roman Empire, the language of business was Greek. It's very similar to that. I was talking to someone while I was over there. Years ago, I got on a plane in a city called Arusha to fly to Mwanza, and seated in the seat in front of me was a man from the Netherlands who spoke Dutch, and a man from East Africa who spoke Swahili, and they're carrying on a conversation in English, right? The African fellow couldn't speak Dutch. The Dutch fellow couldn't speak Swahili, but they both could speak English. Greek was like that in the ancient world, right? So people who lived in ancient Israel, their language, obviously they'd have Hebrew dialect, but then they'd have Aramaic. And then there was Greek that covered both. Paul's writing to Roman Christians. That's over in Rome, in Italy. They're not Aramaic speakers. They're probably Latin and Greek speakers. But he uses the Aramaic word. And he incorporates it into the conversation because it had become a very crucial evidence of the kind of relationship that had been established between God and his children. This was the word that Jesus used in Mark chapter 14 when he talked to his father and said, Abba, Father. That's the cry that has been put into our heart by the Holy Spirit that we might address our Father with that kind of a close word, right? Now, I honestly, I don't, I just, sometimes we love to get nitpicky about all kinds of things. And so sometimes people go, Abba's like daddy. And here's what I'd say is usually people who say that is because they use daddy. I honestly, I may have called my dad daddy. I can never remember calling him daddy. So like for me, daddy wasn't like some big intimate term and that's what people, but sometimes what people are trying to say is that because it's sort of the sound of it, it was a child's word, but there's evidence of it being used by adults anyway, probably like in my family kind of heritage, it was like a word like papa. that had a signification of a close relationship to the person you're addressing. That's what's going on here though, right? We're outsiders of the family. We're actually under the wrath and judgment of God, but God in his grace adopts us into his family. grants us the privileges of being his children, greatest of which is the ability to address him as our father. And the adoption that Paul is talking about here is, I think most would recognize it would be the same kind of adoption that's in that Greco-Roman world. A part of it would be, Like, let's say I'm an abandoned child who has nothing but trouble and debts, and I'm adopted into the family, and all of those debts are assumed by my father and paid for. I'm brought into a position of privilege and blessing. It draws me to him. I become his. And I can express to him the kind of love and family relationship that his, if I could put it this way, his natural son, Jesus, expressed. I can join in that description of God as my father, Abba, Father. I've been brought that close. It draws me in to him. Notice the beginning of verse 16. It also assures us this present relationship brings assurance to us. The Spirit Himself testifies with or to our spirit that we are children of God. And it could be either one of those, with our spirit or to our spirit. I don't think there's that much distinguishing between the two. I think the key to see is the text is actually making a distinction between the Holy Spirit and our spirit. whether it's the Spirit testifying to our spirit that we're God's children or the Spirit testifying alongside of or with our spirit that we are God's children. The thing that's true is that there are two spirits here. Right, my spirit either receives the testimony of the spirit or is also offering a testimony of the fact that I'm God's child. And I think both of those are probably true because in verse 15, it's my spirit that's crying out of a father. That's the testimony of my spirit that God's my father. And the Holy Spirit is also making this testimony as a gracious work in my experience that I'm God's child. And we don't have time to run all over the New Testament and think about this theologically in all the places it does, but if you've been around, you know that I try to challenge us on this point because sometimes people have abused experiences of the Spirit in such a way that has made us so frightened of them, we almost act as if any experience of the Spirit's work is somehow going to push us away from the revelation of God to experientialism. But here's the thing, this work of the Spirit is revealed to us in the Word of God right here. So I'm not standing here and saying to you, hey, the Spirit testifies to me that I'm God's child, so I'm telling you, you should have that. That would be basing it in my experience. It's actually the text that tells us that the Spirit does this. The authority of God's word says the Spirit testifies about our being children of God. It's his work to grant assurance to us that in fact, we do have this relationship with God. That's what this passage is talking about, Galatians chapter four, tied to our adoption as the Spirit has been poured into our hearts. And in fact, it's not the thing that causes it, it's actually the fruit of it. We've been adopted, so the Spirit has been poured into our hearts so that we cry, Abba Father. Right, John can say in 1 John, we know this because of the spirit whom he's given to us. Ephesians 1 says that the spirit is the down payment, the earnest of our redemption. You've probably heard me say this before, but if somebody wants to, you know, to buy your car from you and you ask for a deposit and they go, just believe you have it. Right? You'd be going, well, what kind of a deposit is that? You would actually say, yeah, show me the money. Right? You'd be going, put it into my bank, and then I will be sure that you're gonna come through with the final payment. The spirit is the deposit. We know that we're born of God because God has put his spirit in us. Our gifts, for instance, are a manifestation of His presence, 1 Corinthians 12 says. We cry out to God, Abba Father, that is the work of the Spirit in us to move us to cry out to God, to call upon Him as our Father is His work, something that we experience. Experience is not bad. experientialism, that is making your experiences authoritative over the Word of God, that's bad. But when the Bible tells us that you must be born again, and that's something that happens to you, then you're letting the revelation of God control your understanding of what the new birth is. And Matt can remember, Multitudes of times, hearing my predecessor, Dr. Rice, talk about the Christian life like this. He'd say, in your Christian experience. And they'd talk about something that the Bible talked about. And somewhere after Pentecostalism turned into Charismaticism, which turned into the signs and wonders movement, everybody sort of backed away. Like, well, let's just not talk about this spirit stuff. Because it's a little too hard to figure out. And here's what I say, that shouldn't surprise us. What did Jesus say in John 3 to Nicodemus? The wind blows where it wills. And you see its effects, but you can't see the wind. And that's the reality of it. That the Spirit operates in a way that we can't see but we can see the effects. And the assurance that's in the heart of a believer, if grounded in the work of Christ and governed by the word of Christ, that assurance is an effect of the Spirit, right? I know, I mean, we don't always necessarily think through the songs we sing as well as we ought to. But this is part of what's underneath that line in Wesley's song, Arise My Soul, Arise. The spirit answers to the blood and tells me I am born of God. There's the objectivity of the blood of Christ shed on my behalf, and there's the spirit work in my heart to assure me that the benefits of that death have been applied to me. The Spirit answers to the blood and tells me I have been born of God. That being born of God is what verse 16 is talking about, that we are children of God. And the reason this is important is, again, and here's the tension, because we're all very different people. So we all have different past experiences. We have different temperaments, personalities. right, different strengths and weaknesses. You know, so take a guy like me who's prone toward analytical stuff, right? So I like to, I like, you know, I can incline to, you know, boil the Christian life down to, you know, let me find the words and analyze them. And so, okay, now I understand it, let's go do this. Right? That kind of a person isn't that sensitive to the touchy-feely ebb and flow stuff. Right? Some other people tilt over here. Right? They are really sort of rise and settle based on how their emotions are. So sometimes they can feel close to God and at times they don't feel close to God. And so here we hear something like this and depending on where we are, how we've been taught, how we've thought about it, it doesn't fit as neatly into our packages as we want it to. We really like it to be very simple in the sense that one size fits all. And the reality of it is that both of those that I just talked about are parts of the dynamic of a relationship with God. It needs to be grounded in truth and what God has done for us in Christ. It has to be anchored in the objective reality of Christ's death on the cross. But it also has to be appreciated subjectively. or else you just run into kind of dead creedal Christianity, which knows nothing of the power of godliness, has no sense of the joy of the Holy Spirit that is produced in our hearts because we stand in awe of the fact that God has welcomed us into his family. I mean, it really should be like, I should go, God adopted me and I'm moving in the house and go, hey, thanks for that, that's great. Get on with life. I mean, can you imagine being like this young lady I just talked about who basically is left destitute, you know, to wander a village with no one to care for her needs, no one to love her, and someone comes along and says, I want you to come into my family, and I'm gonna treat you just as if you're my daughter, and I'm gonna love you and care for you and provide for you and protect you. Can you imagine that girl just walking and going, hey, thanks. with no heart of joy, no awe and wonder over that? Nothing moving inside? Why would we ever think the Christian life is like that? Just like, give me my task list, to-do list. Let me just, let me figure out another couple test questions and I'll be okay. Right, God has made us his children and that has brought us into a close relationship that's grounded in his love for us, that was demonstrated in the sacrifice of his son on behalf of us and has taken us out of our desperate condition and brought us into his family and bestows on us all the blessings of the best parent to a child ever. He is the perfect Father who loves us perfectly. And that brings us into that fellowship. And in fact, even the Spirit is constantly bearing witness. Listen, hey, you have been loved. You have been made a child. You're in the family. You're His. And you'll come back later in this chapter and say, and nothing can separate you from his love in Christ. Right? That's what it produces in us. And when we get that into our heart, then that's going to change the way we look at this world and what we consider to be the most important things of this world and how we go about living in this world. It'll no longer be according to the flesh. it'll be by the Spirit. Look at verse 17, because here's where then it leads into this, right? He starts talking about children, and so then he extends it, verse 17. And if children... then you are heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him." Look at the promise, if I could have, and I'm doing it mainly for like, you know, put the pegs in your mind, right? So our present relationship with God, we're his children, but then he turns our attention through this language of heirs or inheritance, to the promised riches that he has for us. Here's why I said, look at verse 18. He just talks about inheritance, glory, suffering, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us. So he's talking about something great that's going to be unveiled for us in the future. The character of these is that they're founded on the privilege of adoption. Right, so that's why I'm saying the flow of Paul's thought is God's made you his children, and if you're his children, then you're heirs. Right, you are his heirs. You will inherit from him. So it's founded on their relationship with God. The adoption we have received brings us into a family relationship that grants privilege and access like his son. Our debts have been canceled and we have been blessed by our father. Notice he says, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. So these blessings, these riches promised to us flow from God and Christ. The attention in this text isn't to start looking at ourselves. Look at me, I am a son. No, it's actually, look at my father. Look at what Christ did. This is amazing because I'm the heir of God. I'm a joint heir with Christ, right? So he's drawing our attention out to the source from which these riches will come to us. It's not ours by natural right, it's ours by relationship to him. And notice it's focused on glory. The end of the verse, we may also be glorified with him. I think this is really where Paul has returned to. And again, this is the problem. Remember, if we were the Roman church and we got this book that we call a book, it's a letter. And probably the first thing we'd done is we had somebody stand up and read it to us. And sometimes what happens is because we probably are not prone to have like a four or five hour church service where someone's reading this whole book and then we're talking about it is it starts to get broken up into parts and not necessarily the connection. But remember what he was saying just When he talked about why we can be free from sin, it's because of what God's done for us. And in verse 11, he talked about the promise of the resurrection, right? But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you, right? So he's, He's moved from justification to the work of the Spirit to give us regeneration, and then moves to the promise of resurrection, right? Why can we overcome sin? It's because of all of these things. And ultimately, here's the promise, the Spirit will give life to our mortal bodies, right? That's what he says, verse 11. So 12, so you're not under any obligation to the flesh. Why not? The resurrection. You don't have any obligation to it. So all he's doing is 12 to 17, he's coming back around to that, right? The end of 17, he's like, we'll be glorified with him. He's coming back to the future promise as the ground for present obedience. And then he starts to talk about the groaning we experienced, the fact that we're saved by hope, anticipating the redemption of our bodies. He's pushing us back to this, right? So it's focused on the future of God's glory being given to us. So we're glorified with Christ. We're made like Christ. That's the thing that pushes us toward it. I mean, even just the very idea of inheritance is something that's in front of you, right? So he's beginning to call them to be able to live presently because of the promised blessings of God. They are the anchor point for them. They've been made right with God in the relationship. They have a promise from God about what really matters. So they don't have to live for this flesh. They don't have to live for it. Now notice the end of verse 17, because he sets it up again like a condition. If indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. And here's what I believe Paul is doing. I think the second part of verse 17 actually corresponds to verse 13. Putting to death the deeds of the body. That if we're actually going to identify with Jesus Christ, if we live according to the flesh, we'll die, but if by the Spirit we're putting to death the deeds of the body, we'll live. He comes back and says, listen, you're an heir of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ. You will enjoy all of this, provided you are living like what he said to live, right? Because this is the mark of what it means to be a Christian. You have been dislocated from this world. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples in John 14-16, we call it the Farewell Discourse, the last verse of the Farewell Discourse. Jesus says, in the world you will have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world. What Jesus was saying to them is, I'm leaving, And in this world, you're gonna have conflict. If you follow me, you are now going upstream in a downstream world. It is going to produce friction in your life. It's going to be challenging. There's gonna be persecution and opposition. If they've hated me, they'll hate you. It is not all sunshine and puppies to follow Jesus. Because this world is no friend of grace to bring us on to God. So if we're really going to live like the children of God, who have an eternal inheritance, then it means we're going to be going against the grain. That's what it means to be led by the Spirit. That's what it means to put to death the deeds of the body. That can be sometimes the fight we have with the flesh. It can be the fight we have with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. It can be the fight we have with those who want to oppose and persecute the followers of Jesus Christ. But we've staked our claim. It's Christ. We're His. And we're willing to endure that because of Christ. What Paul's driving at is simply this, because of our present relationship with the Father and our promised riches with Christ, we can put to death the deeds of the body. So you might be saying to me, boy, this is all great truth. But I mean, at the rubber meets the road level, here's what I'd say. We have to depend on the power of the Spirit. as many as are led by the Spirit. If you're trying to fight the battle with sin in your own strength, you will not win. If you're trying to do it by the law, if I just adopt all the right rules and policies for my life, I can master sin. You're then doing it on your own. You must have the work of the Spirit in you, which means, first of all, you must have a relationship to God through Jesus Christ, because the Spirit comes to those who belong to Christ. And all I can say, and to go back to everything I said about the experience of salvation, one of the great dangers dangers of the wonderful benefits that we have of all the things God's given to us. One of the great dangers is that someone can sit in the middle of Christianity and have all kinds of Christian things happening around them. They can be taught all kinds of Christian truth and information so that they could answer Bible trivia, win the day, but unless they have been born again, they're not a Christian. I could go sleep in my garage, it's not gonna make me a car. Just because you're in a church and you've heard the Bible doesn't mean that you've been born again. There has to be actually the work of life in your heart because the presence of the Spirit has opened your eyes to see the glory of Christ, that it's produced in you an awareness of your sinfulness and his sufficiency, and you have turned to Christ and confessed him as your Lord. That's what it means to be a Christian. It's not going to a church. It's not going to a Christian school. It's not graduating from a Christian college. It's not actually even working at a Christian organization. I mean, Jesus warns that there'll be many in that day who say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not cast out demons? And Jesus will say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity. I never knew you. Right? Even while they were doing things for Jesus, they were a worker of iniquity. They weren't receiving the authority of Christ in his word and humbly submitting to it. They didn't know Christ, or even more importantly, in the language of that text, Christ didn't know them. Depart from me, worker of iniquity, I never knew you. So we cannot take what it means to be a Christian and reduce it to answering some intellectually-based questions alone. Even the demons believe and do not tremble. They know who Jesus is. It really comes down to the heart grasping the reality of these truths and the Spirit of God pressing them into the heart. so that the person has new life that cries, Abba, Father. I've been here a long time, so I hope you know, I take no joy in causing anybody to doubt their salvation. But it's necessary for us at times to think about this. Because here's what an implication of this text is. If you have absolutely no heart for and impulse toward prayer, then the Spirit may not be present. Because if the Spirit is in your heart, there's a cry, Abba Father. So if you can be a prayerless Christian and completely comfortable with that, you may be a non-Christian. Because whoever's born of God, the Spirit is in their heart, and they're crying out, Abba, Father. It would be like saying that you had absolutely no desire for a relationship with your Father, yet you think you have one somehow. You have no interest in your father, you have no care for your father, no desire to communicate to your father, yet somehow telling yourself, everything's okay with my father. Same things here. Spiritually, if you have a relationship with God, that you have been, by the Spirit, brought into the family of God, are adopted, then your heart cries, Abba, Father. And if that's not there, Don't ignore that. Can I plead with you not to just sort of brush that aside and go, hey, it'll all be okay one day? Because it won't. If you see that that is missing, then you ought to be turning to Christ. pleading for his mercy, crying out for the work of the Spirit to give you life, because that's the only hope. Don't drown in the midst of incredible blessing, never drinking the rich waters that God has supplied for you, but just drowning in them. Trust in Christ and Christ alone as the only hope. And the Spirit will come to live in your life, and you can overcome these by the power of the Spirit. Cultivate your relationship with God. That cry out is an issue of prayer and crying out to Him in desperation of our need, but also in joy over His gifts. Wait till the music calls you to heaven, and then you'll go, no. Third, focus, right? Focus on the riches that await for you. And this is not, I'm not saying anything new here, right? But the ability to say no to this world is because God has put a deeper yes in your heart. that you look at what this world has to offer, the passing pleasures of sin and the fading treasures of this life, you look at it and you go, this isn't worth it. This never satisfies, it always enslaves, it never gives what it promises, it always takes whatever it wants. God has something so much better for me. God has so much better. So much better that verse 18 can say, I don't even think you can compare the sufferings of this world to the glory. It's like if you put them on two sides of the scale, it's such a ridiculous difference. It's not even worthy of that comparison. because what Christ has us is so much better, so much better. So why would we live for the flesh when we have been given so many great and precious promises? Let's bow together in prayer. Father, thank you for loving us when we didn't love you. Thank you for removing the debt of our sin, for making peace with us through your Son, replacing the deadness of our heart with the life of your Spirit, moving us from darkness to light, from alienation into fellowship. What amazing grace. Lord, would you please make it clear in the hearts of every person in this room where they stand with you. May your Spirit convict and expose unbelief, awaken those who are dead to life, cultivate and stir up godly affection among those who are alive. Lord, please do the work that only you can do to produce the life that is clear evidence of your power in the gospel. We need you desperately. And we're grateful that we can look to you as a father who gives good gifts to his children, and that we'll hear our cry. Lord, please move in mercy and might. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.